Wednesday, June 3, 2009

The darndest thing really – you’d expect that links to President Obama’s live speech on Co.NX would be carried by all US missions in countries with substantial Muslim population.Below is a quick rundown of the US Embassies and what resources they have posted online for this major speech in Cairo. Coverage seems to range as follows:

This is not the first time the President will give a speech overseas; and this is not the first time that CO.NX has been made available to the online community. So I'm amazed that the embassies online display for this event is not more "put together." In some websites the letters are so tiny, you need a magnifying glass to find these links. Some provide links to CO.NX with no accompanying explanation.

So if you want to watch the speech online but don't know what to look for, well, tough luck.

Still others post links to CO.NX in their website or Facebook page but not in other associated pages like virtual presence and IRC pages.
This almost reminds me of Echo in the TV series, Dollhouse. After every imprint the dialog is always the same: Echo: "Shall I go now?" Topher Brink, scientist: "If you like."
Shall I link to this? If you like...

In fairness, it must be said that at posts overseas, embassy websites are run by the information management office (IM), or the public affairs crew. The IM folks, of course, are dual or triple hatted to do more than website updates.

We need a herder over at "R" telling the flock "I need these links up yesterday." In a way this is an octopus like operation with hundreds of arms, learning to dance together gracefully.

Maybe Ms. McHale and Mr. Crowley can do something about getting them to learn appropriate new dance steps?